Patients’ Bill of Rights
The Patients’ Bill of Rights is an aggregation of rights that exist in instruments including the Constitution, Consumer Protection Act, Child Rights Act, Freedom of Information Act, National Health Act, the Hippocratic Oath, and other professional ethical codes and regulations.
1. Access to Information
- Patient Rights: Access to all relevant information in an understandable language, including diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, procedures, and outcomes. Right to fully participate in implementing treatment plans and making decisions.
- Patient Responsibilities: Seek information from the caregiver, understand the treatment plan, provide details about changes during treatment, and report dissatisfaction through appropriate channels.
- Provider Responsibilities: Inform patients about available services and eligibility (insurance/costs), disclose if treatment is experimental, answer questions about risks/alternatives, and provide medical records upon request.
2. Patient Related Information
- Patient Rights: Access to records, including the scope of services, and access to the identity, skills, and credentials of treating professionals.
- Patient Responsibilities: Request information about the range/scope of services and the credentials of care providers.
- Provider Responsibilities: Display scope of practice, available services, and contact information. Communicate clearly (provide translation if needed), ensure the patient understands, and provide identification/apparel with visible identity tags.
3. Fee Related Information
- Patient Rights: Full disclosure of cost estimates and transparent, itemised billing.
- Patient Responsibilities: Pay bills or make provisions for prompt payment. In emergencies, demonstrate the ability and intention to pay.
- Provider Responsibilities: In emergencies, provide immediate care, prioritising this over cost/payment. Providers have a right to fees and may use legal means to recover owed fees.
4. Confidentiality
- Patient Rights: Privacy and confidentiality of all information and medical records, unless disclosure is vital for public health in accordance with the law.
- Patient Responsibilities: Complete, truthful, and accurate disclosure of medical history, medication, and complaints.
- Provider Responsibilities: Respect and maintain confidentiality, except where disclosure is required by law or public health interest.
5. Quality of Care
- Patient Rights: Access to a clean, safe, and secure healthcare environment and equitable quality care, irrespective of disability.
- Patient Responsibilities: Seek explanations during treatment and do not constitute a nuisance or endanger others.
- Provider Responsibilities: Maintain personnel certifications/licences and Certificates of Standards. Deliver care that minimises risk and harm (including preventable injury/errors) and adopt clinical governance standards.
6. Patient’s Dignity
- Patient Rights: To be treated with respect and dignity, without prejudice (gender, religion, race, ethnicity, allegations of crimes, geographical location, disability, or socio-economic circumstances). Wishes during “last offices” (at death) should be respected.
- Patient Responsibilities: Respect the rights of other patients and conduct interactions with respect.
- Provider Responsibilities: Treat patients, remains, and tissue samples with dignity without prejudice. Support bereaved relatives, prepare remains for viewing (compliance with guidelines), and counsel patients on disclosing diseases of public health importance.
7. Access to Emergency Care
- Patient Rights: Receive urgent, immediate, and sufficient intervention in an emergency, prioritising needed attention over other factors including cost, payment, or law enforcement requirements.
- Patient Responsibilities: Recognise that emergency prioritisation is not a waiver of the obligation to pay for services.
- Provider Responsibilities: Immediately evaluate patients with medical emergencies and maintain a responsive, 24-hour uninterrupted emergency unit.
8. Visitation
- Patient Rights: Receive visitors, including for religious purposes, according to facility rules.
- Patient Responsibilities: Respect operational rules and systems for the safety of all; accept that facilities may modify rules to maintain decorum.
- Provider Responsibilities: Inform patients/relatives of visitation rules upon admission and conspicuously display the schedule.
9. Patient’s Refusal of Care
- Patient Rights: Retain control of person and be informed of the power to decline care (upon full disclosure of consequences). Right to consent/decline medical research or experimental procedures.
- Patient Responsibilities: Comply with facility rules and directives of attending professionals.
- Provider Responsibilities: Secure guardian consent for minors (under 18). Ensure research complies with ethical procedures. Providers may detain patients in the interest of public health.
10. Interruption of Service by Provider
- Patient Rights: To be informed about impending interruptions or disengagement of primary professionals and expect a methodical transition of treatment.
- Patient Responsibilities: Inquire about contingency plans or suitable alternatives.
- Provider Responsibilities: Reschedule appointments during service interruptions and provide sufficient intervention to in-patients and emergencies.
11. Complaints
- Patient Rights: Express dissatisfaction regarding service/provider, personnel changes, and abuse.
- Patient Responsibilities: Complain in accordance with the facility’s redress mechanism; provide sufficient details. If dissatisfied with outcomes, report to regulatory authorities (e.g., Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria) and then to the FCCPC.
- Provider Responsibilities: Encourage questions, maintain records of complaints and redress procedures, and inform patients of the redress mechanism and timelines for action.